


Brawling Love

by yuletide_archivist



Category: Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-20
Updated: 2007-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 09:04:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1643057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yuletide_archivist/pseuds/yuletide_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why then, o brawling love, o loving hate, o anything of nothing first create?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brawling Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for athenejen

 

 

Title: Brawling Love  
Fandom: Shakespeare's _Romeo and Juliet_  
Pairing: Mercutio/Romeo  
A/N: I can't write dialogue like Shakespeare, nor do I think anyone is reasonably expected to... therefore the story is set in Luhrmann's mid-nineties Verona Beach with most language to match.

ROMEO to Benvolio

...Here's much to do with hate, but more with love.  
Why, then, O brawling love! O loving hate!  
O anything, of nothing first create!  
O heavy lightness! serious vanity!  
Mis-shapen chaos of well-seeming forms!  
Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health!  
Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!  
This love feel I, that feel no love in this.  
Dost thou not laugh?

-Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene I, l. 171-183

* * *

The sun's heat was like a heavy weight on Romeo's neck as he sat on the bench, peering across the street from behind sunglasses that did little to hide his anxious expression. He watched the church door, though he pretended to watch the passers-by, the cars, the aimless wandering of pigeons in the dusty, clay-bricked square.

Mercutio gave an exasperated sigh as he paced behind the bench. "If the Friar were any more long-winded, they'd have a storm blowing up in Mantua."

Romeo smiled, still watching the church doors. "Aye, a cool storm to ease this wretched heat. I'd be grateful for that kind of wind."

Mercutio scoffed, "You need cooling down - that's a fact, acolyte."

"Been a long time since I was one of those."

"Yes, and now you worship something else, to be sure," Mercutio said, spreading his palms on the back of the bench and following Romeo's gaze to the door. "An equal waste of time, I remind you."

"No waste to spend time in worship of the divine," Romeo mused, and then tapped Mercutio's knuckles with his forefinger as the church bells began to ring. His body stiffened; he hooked a finger around the sunglasses to pull them down. "That's Mass," he said, his voice quiet. "Here they come."

Soon a procession of people began to file out of the church. Romeo scanned the crowd for a single face, a single head of flaxen hair, a single pair of almond eyes.

He almost missed her; her hair was covered with a demure silk scarf. Black, lifting in the wind, nearly transparent. She descended the church steps on her uncle's arm. Romeo's fingers dug into the side of Mercutio's wrist, only for a second. "There she is," he said. He stared, watching the girl secure the scarf that veiled her head like night's shadows, his head turning as they turned up the street to walk along a lengthy line of cars. "Have you ever seen her like? For beauty and grace? Tell me, living or dead, if it is possible that anyone will ever... _approach_ her radiance."

"You make me sick," Mercutio said to Romeo, nonetheless watching the girl and her older companion process up the street.

Romeo did not rebuke him, nor did he react to his friend's dismissal of the girl's quality. Instead, he rose and stared until they were quite out of sight, and they were driven away in a black sedan.

"It's useless," Mercutio said.

Romeo turned, his eyes narrowing in confusion. "Why?"

"I know her. I know the family," Mercutio said, taking a lazy stroll around the bench to draw up beside Romeo. "Her name is Rosaline."

"Rosaline," Romeo breathed, and it was an incantation.

Mercutio glared meaningfully before turning to walk across the square, away from the street. "Come on. I'll tell you more as we dine."

"No - I insist, tell me now," Romeo said, scurrying to keep up with his energetic friend. "If you know of something - some impediment to my pursuit - am I not worthy of the finest woman here? Will I not provide her with a fine name, a fine house, fine things worthy of her countenance?"

Mercutio marched on, not even pausing in his stride as he said, "Ha."

"Has she another suitor? A lover greater than myself, to whom she's pledged her devotion? I beg you, tell me earnestly, and end my pain."

"Who that girl loves, you could not possibly dream of comparison," said Mercutio with a mysterious smirk as he reached his car. It was parked illegally - Mercutio didn't pay much attention to traffic regulations, and his mother's cousin, the police chief, was frequently too busy with more pressing matters than to ensure his prosecution. The convertible was too flashy for Romeo's tastes, but it suited his friend's extravagant personality.

"Who? Who does she love?" Romeo asked, vaulting over the passenger-side door of the car to slide into the leather seat. His eyes were wide and desperate as he caught Mercutio's forearm, preventing him from turning the key in the ignition. "I implore you to tell me now, and put my suffering heart to rest."

Mercutio sighed, casting his eyes over the dirty windshield, the quiet, hot street now deserted since everyone had gone home for Sunday dinner. "She means to take vows."

"She's to be wed?" Romeo stared. "But I've not heard - haven't seen her with anyone eligible. How can it be?"

Mercutio leveled a withering gaze on Romeo. "This heat has addled your brains. I don't mean _wedding_ vows. I mean she plans to take the veil."

Romeo gaped; Mercutio's eyes fell to Romeo's sweaty fingers as they fell from his espresso-dark forearm. There was a quiet moment. Mercutio cocked his head and started the car.

"How do you know?" Romeo said into the wind as Mercutio turned onto the main street. His tone was distant, accusatory.

"Her brother spoke of it last week. I played pool with him. You weren't there."

"Obviously."

Another stony silence. Mercutio drove for another minute, until they had left the confines of the city, and made their way toward the Montague estate, just outside the city walls. The city buildings and traffic soon fell away to groves of sycamores and pines.

"I didn't say I wanted to go home," Romeo muttered as they exited the city limits.

Mercutio suddenly slammed on the brakes, and the car screeched to a halt on the shoulder, narrowly missing a ditch. A car behind them blew its horn and sped around them. Romeo swore as the dust settled. "Are you trying to kill us?" he snapped.

"Perhaps that's a fine idea, since I can't seem to please you any other way," Mercutio shot back, turning off the engine. "You ask for the truth, and I tell it. What's my reward? Prince Romeo's foul mood, thanks to his foul pursuit."

"Oh, calm _down_ ," Romeo said. "I didn't mean it."

"You and these _women_ ," Mercutio went on, oblivious to Romeo's verbal retreat. "Every girl is the _finest_ , the _highes_ t, the _brightest_. Until the next one comes along. Do you realize that you and I have spoken of nothing else since _Christmas_?"

Romeo stared. "You're too incensed to drive. Give me the keys."

"The keys?" Mercutio's eyes were wide with frustration.

"Yes! Give me the damn keys!"

"You want them? Fine. Go _get_ them," Mercutio said, and drew back his right arm to hurl the keys deep into the trees by the roadside.

Romeo's mouth dropped open as he looked into the shady grove. "I can't believe you just did that." He turned back to his friend. "You realize this is _your_ car."

"I know whose damn car it is," Mercutio snapped. He was already pulling the handle with a dull click and getting out into the road. He marched into the trees, and with another muttered curse, Romeo got out and followed.

"Mercutio," he called, and his plaintive tenor echoed in the glade. There was no sign of his friend. Mercutio's fits of temper were almost as legendary as his impromptu musical performances, and so Romeo was well-accustomed to talking him out of a violent mood.

Mercutio didn't like it when Romeo talked about women. That was not news. But it was news for him not to hide it, not to pretend to be cavalier and good-natured like Benvolio. As Romeo picked his way beneath branches and over rocks and roots, he sighed in frustation. He loved his friend well. They had played together as children - Mercutio's late father had been employed by the Montague corporation as a security guard, a long time ago, before things had gotten out of hand. Mercutio, not a woman, was the first person for whom Romeo had snuck out of the house.

There was silence save for birdsong in the woods. Romeo paused, his shoulder against firm bark, and folded his arms. In front of him was a small pond; he and Mercutio had fished there as children, or tried. They didn't catch anything.

Suddenly, Romeo was seized from behind, by two firm hands on his shoulders. He was knocked off-balance, and he stumbled forward, headlong, flailing his arms desperately as he tumbled, face-first, into the pond.

The water was cold and silent. Bubbles rose as Romeo instinctively surfaced. He spat water, treading with arms and legs in the shallow pond, turning around to see Mercutio, collapsed with laughter, sprawled by the edge with a knee carelessly arched over a rock.

"That will surely cool your ardor," Mercutio said with a broad grin.

"Good. Are you satisfied, then, now that I've been doused?" Romeo said, paddling to the edge and struggling out, his wet clothes clinging in giant wrinkles to his legs and back.

"For the moment, yes," Mercutio said, breaking into a fresh round of laughter at the amount of water Romeo poured from his sneaker.

"Good!" Romeo said, and no sooner had he said the word than he had caught Mercutio by his shirtfront and tossed him, headlong, into the pond. Romeo sat on the muddy bank, watching as Mercutio coughed and sputtered. It didn't amuse Romeo as much as he thought it would.

"And what was that for?" Mercutio called while treading water, once he could speak.

"Turnabout's fair play."

"Aye, so they say." Mercutio waded to the shallows, crawling up the bank beside Romeo. He flopped on his back among the wet leaves and withdrew his gun, inspecting it for water damage. Romeo hadn't thought to check his; they lived in violent times, and yet Romeo had always managed to steer clear of trouble.

"My young lord Montague, what a waste we've made of this day," Mercutio said, peering along the barrel of his gun toward the pond, as though he were about to shoot one of the goldfish or coy. "Let's talk no more of uncatchable women."

"Agreed. What then?"

"What we will."

"Affairs of men."

Romeo cast him a sidelong glance. " _Your_ affairs, then."

"And yours, but for accidents of nature," Mercutio said, re-assembling the pistol, tucking it into his waistband.

Romeo stared as Mercutio folded his forearms over his knees. "And what's that mean?"

Mercutio still did not look at him, and wrinkled his nose in a typical expression of dismissal. "Nothing. Fool's talk."

"The fool being you."

"At times." Mercutio's temper had cooled; he reached over to clap Romeo on the shoulder. "Come. Somewhere there sits a Sunday dinner, uneaten."

Romeo lifted a brow with a shrug. "And a chaste woman, just as untouched."

"Chastity over-rated, and the touching, as well."

"I'm to take your word?"

"Why not?"

There was a silence before Romeo said dryly, "What do you know of love?" and it wasn't really a question. Somewhere, a fish leapt in the pond, and the dull splash was followed by the melodious, insistent chirping of birds.

Mercutio cocked his head, eyeing Romeo with disdain. "What do _I_ know of love? I know it is not these fancies of yours, of bright hair and honeyed speech."

"What, then?"

"To die." Mercutio got to his feet with a panther's grace, whirling to stroll into the trees. He talked grandly into the air as Romeo scrambled to his feet and trailed after him. "To love is to die for love. To die to protect whom you love, as my father died protecting us, my mother and me."

"That's all? Love is violent death, these brawls on Verona streets? Death must have more to do with hate, than love."

Mercutio stopped, so suddenly Romeo nearly collided with his broad back. Mercutio bent over, and Romeo was mystified until he saw the keys dangling from Mercutio's fingertips, tiny silver pendulums that jingled strangely amid the sounds of nature.

Mercutio then turned to face his friend, frowning slightly, peering into his face with renewed interest, as though searching for something lost. His lips parted, as though he were about to say something terribly important, and Romeo waited, curious, for what it might be. But soon the introspective expression faded, sunlight smothered by cloud, and Mercutio was closing his eyes for a long blink. "Perhaps to brawl _is_ to love," he said mysteriously, and Romeo knew that was the jester talking, and not along the lines of whatever his friend had really been thinking.

In another minute it ceased to matter; they had reached the car. "I don't follow your madness, Mercutio," Romeo said while climbing into the passenger seat.

"Perhaps you shall, when you're older," was the reply.

Romeo laughed. "We're the _same age_. If not for those few days' difference."

"A few days can change all, my friend," Mercutio said, and started the car.

 

 

 


End file.
